Widgets Ahoy!
Apr 18, 2006Recently Opera Software had a widget contest as a promotional tool for The Gathering. It just so happened that earlier in the day, before reading the announcement, I'd been reading up on the <canvas> element and was thinking of a way I could use it. I learn by doing, mostly; it's how I originally started programming in QBasic 
After reading about the contest, it all came together: I wanted to use <canvas>, and since <canvas> is great for drawing pixels, shapes and fills to the screen (just like QBasic!), I set about reproducing, in widget form, one of my earliest programming creations: a "Tetris" clone called "Mad Russian Blocks".
I didn't get a great deal of sleep while I was building it, but it turned out rather nice I changed the name to WidgetTetra (the original title was too corny!) and submitted it to the contest with two days to go. I was so revved up about it, I even had the stamina to build an AJAX crossword puzzle widget before the deadline and submit that too!
A few days of nailbiting passed and it turns out my WidgetTetra entry placed third! Not bad for someone who never wrote a widget of any type before Supposedly my prize is a pair of wireless headphones; I really would've liked to win the grand prize (a $6000 computer!), but after taking a look at some of the other very impressive entries I'm surprised I did as well as I did. It was a great effort from everyone!
I've learned a lot from making these entries, so I'm looking forward to the next contest Opera has, hehehe.
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